A Warring Planet
by Romanique
Summary: A planet in the eastern fringe, long cut off from the imperium, is visited by the mighty God-Emporors Legio Astartes. But the forces of chaos linger in the background, and war is soon to break the face of this world for-ever.


To the inhabitants it was known as Märtyrertod, and was one of the few human planets not yet under the control of the Imperium, being situated deep in the eastern fringes. An off-shoot culture from the first crusades, it had weathered the Dark Night solely due to the martial prowess of its Attentäte rulers, skilled killers who struck at the heart of any invading force and left it leaderless until the armed forces moved in.

Luk Hansar had always longed to be on of these mighty leaders, and had joined the army as soon as he turned 17, he had fought in many feudal skirmishes, as well as against the various Ork war bands whose seemingly ceaseless assaults on the planet had taken many sons of the planet to their ignoble demise.

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Walking down the corridors of F block barracks, Luk fidgeted with his tight dress-uniform. This meeting was set to be the biggest of his life. If he passed the tests he was to be set, it would secure him a place in the lower echelons of the Attentäte. What these tests were to be, and how many there would be, he had no idea.

Stepping in to the cold Martyr's morning, he strode briskly across the parade ground, lower ranked troopers bowing in deference to him. The bass throb of the supersonic war-craft, developed in the Western Technocracy and adapted for use by most other nations in the world, shook his diaphragm, and he fought down a wave of nausea caused by the chemical stink of their crude fuels.

Combined with his already nervous stomach, this caused bile to rise in his throat, which he hastily choked back. Upon reaching the command block, he swilled out his mouth with water from a slim hip-flask and spat it onto the concrete to clean his tongue before entering.

The desk Sergeant rose as he stepped over the thresh hold and bowed before handing over a slim dossier. "All you will need to know is in there, Lieutenant", he said before returning to his seat.

Opening the file, Luk discovered three sheets of thick parchment. Two were filled out requisition forms, one for a high calibre Long-Rifle, and the other for the armour commonly worn by the Attentäte. The third was a single, hand written sheet. It had only one line of text, reading simply "Ice and Steel, over the mountain", in a tight, curling script.

Surrendering himself to the biting cold, Luk Hansar stepped out side and went in search of the quartermaster.

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It was called a Martyr's morning due to the driving wind and vicious frost, which meant that only one who really had to would venture out into it. Despite this Aron Rez was quite comfortable walking at the head of the column of nomadic troops he had acquired over the last two years. Wrapped in thick furs and banded steel plate armour, he was in appearance like the old wolf warriors of the northern wastes. He had been dubbed the "Ice Lord" in recent years, due to his favoured tactic of attacking out of a blizzard, and the rumours that he had been bestowed with the powers of the ice lizards, who could freeze a mans heart with a single look.

He was ruminating on the origin of this rumour as he strode along. It was quite obviously fake, but none in his camp could tell him where it had originated from. It had been frustrating him in recent weeks, as the newest members of his band had been reluctant to even be in his presence, let alone look him in the eye to offer the correct level of respect. He'd had to order three of them whipped to teach them a lesson.

Ahead of him a plume of powdered snow and smoke was steadily growing closer. So lost in contemplation had he been that he had not noticed it until that moment. Suddenly alert to the danger, and danger it certainly was as none of his troops had vehicles, he called out to his second-in-command to ready a defence.

It took only minutes for the experienced raiders to spread wide, lining both sides of the deep valley, and the newer troops shuffled into position with only a little encouragement. By this time the plume had grown significantly larger, and he ripped the telescope from his belt.

What he saw made his jaw drop.

"Son's of…." he muttered to himself, seeing the phalanx of materiel arrayed in his 'scope. It was made up primarily of armed war-bikes, backed up by mounted cannons, following slowly behind a column of troops half a mile long.

"Holy Father of the Stars", he whispered as the enormity of the situation engulfed him. This was no rival band of brigands looking to scrap with him over territory, this was an official war-party of the Attentäte, looking to bring him to justice.

And that meant…

"EYES SKY-WARD, WATCH FOR SNIPERS", he cried. The Attentäte always used the same tactics. Remove the head, and then decimate the body. Turning he ran back to the main force of his troops. "Gather in tight, we must retreat to a more defensible position." He called to his second.

"I think not _sir._ You see, I rather think I'll kill you, and leave your pathetic rabble to it's fate. My ascension shall be… _glorious." _

"But Luk, why?"

"Because old man, the Attentäte wills it", and with this, Luk Hansar, infamous second-in-command to the terrible Aron Rez, slid a long _khanjar _knife from its sheath, and slid it into the stomach of the man who he'd been tracking patiently for close on fourteen months.

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It had begun with a fight, words said that would best have gone unsaid, and once said could not be taken back. He had called the man an idiot, an upstart youth with no comprehension of the power he now held. He had been called a relic of a dead system. Blades had been drawn and fully half of the Prince's guard had sided with him. But the army had been called in, and those loyal to him and the old ways had been set upon. But they were veterans, and those who hadn't sided with them refused to attack anyway.

He had fled, almost seventy men supporting him at the set out. Many had died simply escaping the palace. Elvin, Marko, Dion, these were names he would never hear spoken again, faces he would never see smile.

The boy, Rik, whose sword skill was unparalleled, but who'd been gunned down as he charged a heavy-carrier. That image woke him in the darkest nights, even unto the day of his death, as the cycling chambers had raced the running youth and, stunningly, horrifyingly, won.

He'd reached the gates with under half of those who'd followed him, and had turned on the threshold to see the Prince in his tower, standing, watching.

And, with tears streaming down his face, he'd sworn to have vengeance. For twenty-three months he'd plotted and planned, gathered a small force about him, and assailed the edges of the bastard's kingdom.

And now, It was all for nought, his life stolen by the blade of one he'd trusted.

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Luk Hansar strolled down the valley towards the oncoming troops. He'd voxed them earlier and arranged an intercept, and now they moved in with rapid precision the bikes at the fore, with trucks carrying the troops for rapid deployment and the cannons opening up from range, cutting off the enemies escape.

As he walked he stripped of the furs and steel plated armour he'd been wearing and slid on the mask of the Attentäte, the reactive 'gel protecting him from the harsh cold, and ensuring that the troopers didn't open fire on him.

As the open trucks passed him he could see the troopers going through the psych-conditioning rituals to prepare them selves for the battle ahead. Each one of them was supported mentally by one of the wytch-kind that had been part of their civilization for millennia, and was inured to fear and pain.

These were only green shirts though, so they had none of the bio-mechanical improvements that more veteran platoons had, and Luk doubted if they'd even been in a fight before. He found himself considering their weaknesses, where he would strike to leave them helpless, and singled out the leaders, or those who would rise to be them.

So engrossed was he in these thoughts, he didn't realize he was being followed until the gloved hand grasped his shoulder, and spun him gently. As he looked in to a face clad in the same mask as him a voice whispered, "Well done, Master Hansar."

Blackness descended.

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It wasn't the pain that woke him, but the icy chill that came after it. Some where a saw buzzed, but it seemed a great distance away. All feeling was muted, and when he tried to sit up, he found his arms wouldn't support him.

"Relax", came a feminine whisper from next to his ear. "You'll be able to sit in a short while, but I would rest for now. You've had some extensive work done and you don't want to ruin it now do you?"

As she said it Luk could feel the icy fluid course through his veins, his heart rate slowing to a handful of beats and his eyes fidgeting in their sockets, drinking in any scrap of light they could glimpse.

"Wh-" he tried to talk, but found his throat clogged and dry.

"Here drink", came the voice again, and slender hands passed in front of his face, a slender flute of liquor gripped daintily in their fingers. The liquid was warm as it passed down his throat, and he felt his larynx loosen up, his vocal chords becoming taught and ready.

He felt all this in such detail, he almost choked at the distraction of every miniscule movement under his flesh.

"Wha-What have you d-done to m-me?" Luk managed to croak, pushing the glass away as feeling returned to his tightened muscles.

"We have… altered you", a different voice replied. Whilst it was deep and soothing, there was an un-nerving quality about it that set Luk on edge.

"A-altered how?"

"Can you stand?"

Luk tested his legs, and nodded his assent.

"Then follow me, and you will see."

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As he stepped out into the light, Malkom glanced back at the new recruit. He was strong, of that there was no doubt. He'd be useful if the rest of the star men were like the ones they'd encountered already. Laid out on a slab of rock was one of the giants, his armour shorn away by the mort-surgeons chainsaws. His massive bulk was grotesque in it's beauty. A thing of martial perfection, but with no links to mortality, nothing that might give any insight into it's personal life. It was a man-machine, un-caring, unfeeling.

'Astartes', the bastard star-men had called them, coming in their city ships to "Bring the light of the Emperor to the far-flung reaches of space."

An Emperor, it was discovered, who was half dead, confined to a single planet millions of light years away.

Then there were the others.

They were the same size as the dead "man", but had a kind of beauty that belayed their martial calling. They had beautifully made up faces, vibrant armour of pinks and purples, and scraps of poetry attached to their armour. They had come, and they had played outlandish instruments for the prince, gifted him with fine silks and beautiful women. And not once had they raised their weapons.

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Brother-Sergeant Molit was dead. He knew this for a certainty. They had made planet fall in a Thunderhawk, 5 Astartes, himself and Lord-Governor Rosemont. They had found this tiny patch of humanity whilst launching a strike on a gathering Waagh in the eastern fringes, and had thought to envelope it into the Imperium.

They had met with a great level of resistance. Whilst in conversation with the Prince, whom he thought was the sole ruler of the planet, being the only one bearing a monarchic title, he had gone into detail about the Emperor, and his silent vigil from terra.

Outraged that the ruler of an Empire could not even stand, the Prince had refused to join the Imperium then and there, and had begun blaspheming against the emperor.

Enraged, Molit had grabbed the man by the shoulders and hurled him across the room. Before he could turn to continue the attack a resounding _crack _sounded, and Molit was hurled to the ground. Multiple shots were then by his men, aiming into corners of the room. They were all blasted off their feet by shots from the darkness

Molit was the only one alive to stand back up, and as he did so he saw the Prince walking towards him, shrugging off his cloak and drawing a slim sabre from his belt.

Ripping his chainsword from it's sheath, he thumbed the activation rune and bellowed a challenge at the tiny human before him.

The Prince lunged forward and Molit parried with inhuman speed, swinging round with a decapitating stroke, but the prince had already ducked and drove his sword up, up through Astartes armour, bone and muscle. The blade was pushed in so far that it burst out through Molit's backpack. He stumbled and fell, impaled on the blade, paralyzed where his spinal column was split in two.

"Take him." Said the Prince, "Study how he dies, and clear these bodies away"

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End file.
